Why We Still Love One Piece After 20 Years

It was 20 years ago today—July 19, 1997—that One Piece made its debut in the pages of Shonen Jump magazine. With volume 86 due out in Japan next month, it is the top-selling manga in the entire world, having moved over 416 million copies worldwide (for reference, Batman and Superman have sold 460 million and 600 million comics, respectively, and they’ve both been around a hell of a lot longer).
The One Piece anime adaptation began in October 1999 and has never stopped either—the episode count is over 800 by this point, plus more than a dozen movies and additional spin-offs, all of them massive hits in Japan.
Viz first brought the manga series to North America in 2003, and the saga of the rubber-limbed Luffy D. Monkey and his Straw Hat Pirates, sailing the dangerous, unpredictable Grand Line in search of a legendary treasure, has been entertaining English-speaking readers ever since.
We’re celebrating the 20th anniversary with a roundup of commentaries by critics and editors, who talked with us about why they love Luffy and the gang.

Jason Thompson, the very first editor of the English-language One Piece, writer of Manga: The Complete Guide and King of RPGs, and creator of the game Mangaka: The Fast and Furious Game of Drawing Comics.
I knew One Piece was big because it had been on the bestseller lists in Japan for years, and the Japanese executives wanted it in Shonen Jump, but honestly, it took a little while to grow on me. The funky art style with its Disney-ish giant sea monsters, wide-open mouths, dorky jokes, and constant “DON!” sound effects was really different from what I was used to in shonen manga. Also, like many manga, it doesn’t really hit its stride for a couple of volumes.

But once I’d read up to the Crocodile arc, I was hooked. Eiichiro Oda’s art style is so original and fresh, the fight scenes are so intense, and the villains are so evil (even though they almost never manage to actually kill anybody). Like Akira Toriyama, Oda really made a mark and influenced so many artists who came later. Even more than Dragon Ball, the story has the structure of an old school RPG video game: (1) the heroes go into a town where a villain is causing trouble, (2) they beat the villain, (3) there’s a big party and lots of crying and laughing, (4) they get stronger and move on to another town. This happens over and over, with some twists, but Oda’s world is so imaginative it always stays fun.
I feel I should mention that One Piece traditionally lagged behind Naruto in popularity in the US, whereas it’s the reverse in Japan.

I think this was partly because Naruto is about ninja, which is something Americans “expect” in Japanese pop culture, like how in the ’90s, the Samurai Shodown video game series was more popular in the US than it was in Japan.
Also, Naruto has a more conventionally realistic, American-comics-like art style, and generally a more “serious” attitude, while one of the hallmarks of One Piece, to me, is that it’s so big-mouthed and bug-eyed and exaggerated that it seems almost to be winking at the reader.
I firmly believe that One Piece works on two levels: a purely wacky level which little kids like, and a kinda “joking on the square” level for older readers who can see that it’s silly and melodramatic, but who love it and get into it anyway. That’s one of the things I love about shonen manga in general, and One Piece in particular, and I’m glad other people seem to love it too.

Kate Dacey, The Manga Critic
For me, it’s all about the cartooning. Nobody does a better job of creating characters than Oda, who knows how to tell a character’s backstory through a few well chosen details: a goofy weapon, a perfectly-placed scar, a unibrow so enormous and unkempt you just know its owner hasn’t seen a mirror—or other people—in a few decades. If I were an aspiring shonen manga artist, One Piece would be my Bible for how to draw memorable villains.

Christopher Butcher, organizer of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, editor-at-large for Viz, and former manager of The Beguiling comic shop in Toronto
I really like One Piece. It’s hard to explain what an amazing achievement it is to folks who haven’t read it though, at least here in the west. In Japan it’s a juggernaut—it’s so big, so multifaceted, licensed onto every kind of merchandise, every kind of experience you can imagine. Here, it’s “just” an incredibly compelling, highly-crafted adventure series that’s hit a weekly deadline (more or less) for 20 years, across dozens of volumes.
You’d think that’d be enough to convince people right? “This amazing comic has been a Japanese—an international—bestseller for 20 years, aren’t you at least curious to check it out?” But there’s something about the rubbery, goofy, earnest, and loveably Luffy that doesn’t quite connect with the uninitiated. It’s their loss, of course, and better still, it means that somehow this absolute comics behemoth that has conquered the rest of the world remains a little cooler, a little quieter, a little more under the radar in North America. That’s pretty cool on its own. Congratulations to Oda-sensei, I wish him all the best, and hope he’s able to rest, relax, and enjoy his accomplishment!

David Brothers, branding manager at Image Comics and blogger, I Am David Brothers
A big part of the appeal of Oda’s One Piece is how he takes very relatable and timely issues—commitment, loyalty, bigotry, and even the idea of gaining a “reputation” due to your acts—and dresses them up in action-oriented comic clothes. The message is buried deep, but whether you’re reading closely or just skimming, it’s easy to see why the series has repeatedly broken sales records and went from a modest weekly comic to the globe-spanning juggernaut it is today. It’s aimed at teen boys, but it’s written for everyone.

Deb Aoki, blogger, MangaComicsManga
My personal take on it is that it’s just a singularly original series—Oda’s pirates reflect a colorful, fun-house mirror of the usual Pirates of the Caribbean type sea-faring bandits that you usually see in Western movies/comics today. It’s full of adventure, hope, and heart, and takes the reader on an action-packed emotional roller coaster without ever losing its sense of fun.
One Piece has lots of over-the-top villains with way-out powers, and the action takes place in a world that is full of “because we can” details—like talking reindeer and jolly skeletons with afros—that out-does anything that L.Frank Baum ever conjured up in the Land of Oz. It’s just a perfect mix of imagination and classic shonen manga storytelling that keeps it fresh and entertaining, week after week.
At first glance, the female characters are super curvy, but they’re also strong and fascinating women who hold their own in what’s normally considered a “man’s world” of seafaring adventure.
And the emotions! The raw emotions that you encounter in One Piece! Crying! Laughing! Rage! Pain! Joy! It’s intense!
It’s a testament to Oda’s storytelling that it’s now on its 85th volume, and is still going strong, still is the bestselling comic in the world.

Sam Leach, writer for Anime News Network and one of the hosts of The One Piece Podcast, which covers the One Piece anime and manga in incredible detail.
The thing that keeps drawing me back to One Piece is its size. Now, size can be a scary thing—it might even be the main element that causes somebody’s hesitation to try the series out—but what One Piece aims to do is so extraordinary that it can’t be missed. In this era of shared universes and massive multi-part franchises, it’s a marvel One Piece still stands out as one of the most ambitious and elegantly told fantasy epics out there. It’s long, but it’s long with a purpose, and I’d reckon that something of this scope and quality will never be replicated.
Even at its most indulgent, there’s an imagination and a sense of humor that keeps it sincere and interesting, no matter what. There’s room for every island on the Grand Line to provide a new genre and aesthetic, but the choice to make this a world of pirates means there’s always that texture grounding it into something tender and adventurous. The act of reading One Piece is meant to be a journey, one where your new crewmates grow on you and you get to watch the world change beneath your feet. Many stories boast about how they can make you laugh and cry, but One Piece is a series that leaves them all in the dust.

Sean Gaffney, blogger, A Case Suitable for Treatment
One Piece has always been something I really enjoyed from the start.  I became a true obsessive of the series, however, during the Enies Lobby arc (Volumes 39-44), which featured some of the best fights in the series, lots of heartwarming moments, and finally brought Nico Robin, my favorite character, around to trust in her friends and crewmates. It’s pure magic. It also has Sniper Island, which exists… in your heart.

Michelle Smith, blogger, Soliloquy in Blue
I’m a big fan of shounen manga that can make me verklempt. A lot of the time, this manifests as a love of sports manga, where the underdog team is working hard to make their dreams come true.
As for One Piece, I know the exact moment it got me: volume nine, when Nami, so fiercely independent up until that point, finally breaks down and asks Luffy for help, and we see that the guys were ready to fight for her all along and were just waiting for her to say the word.
What keeps me reading is the consistency and continuity. I love feeling that Oda has a plan and knows where the series is going, and relish those moments between action-heavy arcs where more of the worldbuilding comes into play. I cannot imagine dropping the series now, after having read 82 volumes of it!
For more One Piece love, follow our ongoing volume-by-volume readalong!